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by maxbond 17 days ago
Just so you know, I have nothing to do with Stanford, but I am flagging this as conspiratorial nonsense. So when you comment is flagged, I just want you to know that it doesn't confirm your belief, it's just that this comment harms discussion and so must be removed.
2 comments
hoppyhoppy2 17 days ago
>Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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maxbond 17 days ago
Yes, mea culpa. Occasionally I break that rule on my own judgement. Feel free to flag my comment. (I think it's important to disconfirm conspiracy theories.)
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thin_carapace 17 days ago
for what it's worth I have no idea why it would be nonsense to question institutional motivations especially in the context of an academic article that could easily be corporate propaganda, I also think that shutting conversations down is much more harmful than discussing topics that are potentially harmful
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maxbond 17 days ago
Completely unevidenced conspiracy theories can only harm the discussion. The only possible benefit is to disconfirm conspiracy theories and discourage paranoid thinking. The odds that Standford as an institution are astroturfing on HN round down to 0.

What they're almost certainly observing is that these critical comments are being flagged as inappropriate. People make inappropriate comments that happen to contain criticism all the time, and I frequently see people edit them to declare that they were flagged because the group they're criticizing is astroturfing. It's virtually never the case. I've never seen it happen.

But to be clear I am completely ambivalent on Stanford and if you want to criticize them, more power to you.

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thin_carapace 17 days ago
may I ask why you effectively said 'conversation over due to harm reasons' instead of asking for evidence to support the conclusion that you believe is not possible? I don't see why it is inherently harmful to discuss the seemingly impossible. I also don't see why it's relevant to bring up your n=1 sample (although it is as relevant as my n=1 sample, which has plenty of astroturfing witnessing [unspecific to Stanford])
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